


in lieu of meta

by Stultiloquentia



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode s05e04, M/M, klaine endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stultiloquentia/pseuds/Stultiloquentia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn't mean for you to be the rebound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in lieu of meta

He didn't mean for you to be the rebound. He's never had a rebound before, how was he supposed to know what the word meant?

He didn't mean for you to get so invested. He isn't used to being desired, knows what he looks like when he stands in front of a mirror, but has no idea what he's like lit by late afternoon sunlight in a coffee shop, bashful grin and lowered eyelashes until he forgets himself and says something so mean and razorishly funny that it's all you can do not to guffaw your chai right out your nose and into your lap.

When your hipbones bumped in your tiny kitchen, rustling up vegetable noodles, and you turned, looked, asked and answered with that look, and leaned to kiss for the first time, it felt like leaves unfurling in spring, green and young and seeking, but knowing, too, knowing what sunlight would feel like, bent on finding it.

It didn't feel like a kiss-to-forget. He was all in, soft lips, light, tentative tongue, then bolder, betraying expertise, before pulling back breathy-startled in your arms. His eyes met yours, searching, and you tried to give everything back; you'd have made yourself as transparent as glass, for him, if you could. He touched your hair. He kissed you again.

"I desperately want to be over him," he said. You knew better; you did. But you fed yourself a line about taking people at face value, and you made a free, clear choice not to guard your heart, and it's a good way to live, mostly; honourable. 

He was a kid. Self-absorbed, careless, never would have believed the transmutations he could wreak with nothing but his touch, his _voice_. 

You kept it easy, casually hopeful, eyeing a long game; kept yourself busy. He was damned good company.

"Blaine asked me to marry him," he said.

"Oh, dear God!" you said, half laughing, incredulous, mustering to commiserate, when his fingers twitched on his mug and you saw the ring there, white out, _tabula rasa_ , stupid, stupid. 

He looked down at it with his eyebrows raised, and the smallest, most tender smile, and you were so fucking angry, in the useless way of a trespasser about to be struck by a train.

You could not think of what to say, so he read it on your face instead, and for once he read you perfectly. You saw it wash over his face, mirroring yourself strangely back to you, both the love and the anger, before his own self reasserted and became bewilderment. 

Nobody's fault—except his, for never having done this before. Except the fiancé's, for being a fuck-up (aren't we all). Except yours, O willing fool. Adam exits the garden. He offered to make himself scarce from Apples rehearsals. You agreed, and he seemed startled by that, a blaze coming back to his eyes. Later you'll chide yourself—for not regretting it. 

He was just a kid. Straight-backed and striving and no-holds-barred. Oh, what a man he will be, but you wish you were more than a milestone in the making of him.


End file.
